Further observations about physics – split files

(27) Order

Let's briefly think around this term.

As we think of order, we automatically infer that we have sorted something bland (dominantly structureless) into something meaningful (information rich). Maxwell's demon comes to mind here. We could devise a "machine" that allows only high energy gas molecules to pass through a gate, from a low energy box to a high energy box, in order to concentrate molecules accelerated by random high energy collisions and so "milk" them. BUT, we need energy to operate the gate; and, entropy teaches us one important point. To create order, we have to be prepared to "pay Peter a little more that we are able to pass on to Paul" in order to establish structure. It is an inefficient process; it's a sort of "slingshot" mechanism that uses guile to rob one closed system of energy to furnish the energy structure of another closed system. Order and information are energy "rich" states. Any tendency to energy dissipation will be the nemesis of order as there is a relentlous gradient towards dissipation and blandness. A "big bang" event represents (probably) the zenith of high energy generation and it is, therefore, an extremely low entropy event (and, by the way, ridiculously improbable – which begs for a logical explanation). However it is, arguably, in an information impoverished state even though it is energy rich. Information (order) is probably able to reach a zenith as high energy flows along the gradient towards low energy. Fractal patterns inevitably form in this flow (think of a series of water pool eddies in the descending stages of a waterfall). These create apparently stationary structure – or "order" – out of a dynamic flow. The lowest entropy state (a high energy state) is, perhaps** simultaneously, a low order state. At the moment of the so called "big bang" entropy is at its lowest; the highest entropy state in our universe is probably that found in the conditions of deep intergalactic space, where it is almost impossible to milk any energy potentials to extract useful (ordering) work. So, while disorder and entropy are interdependent, they are far from synonymous.

**There is some suggestion that the event horizon of black holes (and, reflectively, white holes) may encompass a two dimensional hologram at this horizon and, thus, retain/record the "inflowing" (or "outflowing") information